Being Home
A piece I wrote after a discussion on form.
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Being Home
The front door: Whose paint was chipped until we gave it another coat last summer, not very carefully. It got everywhere, all over our clothes and hands, and then we drank iced tea and sat in big old wooden chairs, and we felt like kings.
The living room: I never went in there. That was where ma and pa went when we had company, usually Mr. and Mrs. Richmond, sometimes the taxman, or pa’s boss.
The kitchen: Where I mixed flour with water and ma snapped her fingers and then there was bread. Where we would sit for world-famous beans at the circle table, some nights for a few minutes until pa poured drink and went into the living room, other nights for hours, when pa would pour and then come back to the table.
The closet in Rosie’s room: Where we would hide. Sometimes because we were playing hide-and-go-seek and we knew that was the best hiding spot, and sometimes because we had to, because we heard ma’s giant footsteps and pa’s preaching voice and that was a place that would keep us safe.
Ma and pa’s room: Where we could hear crying sometimes, in the evening when we got back from school.
The bathroom: I cut myself shaving when pa taught me how when I was sixteen. It wasn’t much blood, but it dripped into the sink and the water made it splash and I was proud, and pa was proud of me, and then we went to get an ice cream, chocolate, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.
The patch of mud in the backyard at the bottom of the hill: The one that never dried, no matter how hot the summer, where I slipped and broke my arm in fourth grade, just as ma said I would if I wasn’t careful. We went to see Mr. Clifton and he set it and said to come back in a month. Ma didn’t see the point in going back, she thought he had already done what he was meant to do, and that was all that was said about that.
The field across the street: The yard with the giant oak that I could see from the window, whose leaves sometimes fluttered to our side of the road but usually made a blanket under its branches. We made giant leaf piles until the wind swept them away in the fall, and we waited for it to bloom in the winter, and we climbed it on the first day of spring, and in the summer we stole its shade, and it never minded.
The front lawn: Where the “For Sale” sign sits, and has sat since October, and will sit for another three months, before some nice people come in and say with smiles that they’ll take it.
___________________
Being Home
The front door: Whose paint was chipped until we gave it another coat last summer, not very carefully. It got everywhere, all over our clothes and hands, and then we drank iced tea and sat in big old wooden chairs, and we felt like kings.
The living room: I never went in there. That was where ma and pa went when we had company, usually Mr. and Mrs. Richmond, sometimes the taxman, or pa’s boss.
The kitchen: Where I mixed flour with water and ma snapped her fingers and then there was bread. Where we would sit for world-famous beans at the circle table, some nights for a few minutes until pa poured drink and went into the living room, other nights for hours, when pa would pour and then come back to the table.
The closet in Rosie’s room: Where we would hide. Sometimes because we were playing hide-and-go-seek and we knew that was the best hiding spot, and sometimes because we had to, because we heard ma’s giant footsteps and pa’s preaching voice and that was a place that would keep us safe.
Ma and pa’s room: Where we could hear crying sometimes, in the evening when we got back from school.
The bathroom: I cut myself shaving when pa taught me how when I was sixteen. It wasn’t much blood, but it dripped into the sink and the water made it splash and I was proud, and pa was proud of me, and then we went to get an ice cream, chocolate, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.
The patch of mud in the backyard at the bottom of the hill: The one that never dried, no matter how hot the summer, where I slipped and broke my arm in fourth grade, just as ma said I would if I wasn’t careful. We went to see Mr. Clifton and he set it and said to come back in a month. Ma didn’t see the point in going back, she thought he had already done what he was meant to do, and that was all that was said about that.
The field across the street: The yard with the giant oak that I could see from the window, whose leaves sometimes fluttered to our side of the road but usually made a blanket under its branches. We made giant leaf piles until the wind swept them away in the fall, and we waited for it to bloom in the winter, and we climbed it on the first day of spring, and in the summer we stole its shade, and it never minded.
The front lawn: Where the “For Sale” sign sits, and has sat since October, and will sit for another three months, before some nice people come in and say with smiles that they’ll take it.